September is Heritage Month as well as Innovation Month. Lynn Joffe, founder of Creatrix, elaborates on the importance of ‘celebrating local' beyond Heritage Month and innovating by telling specific brand stories with destination-driven radio content that leapfrogs over the literacy barrier...

When I wrote last week about declining audiences and poor customer support in the TV industry, I didn't expect the deluge of sympathetic complaints I received - nor how upset a lot of viewers really are...

Quirk Education will be hosting their first digitally focused week-long programme of contact workshops for 2013. These half-day workshops aim to equip the local market with global best practice principles and techniques based on the working knowledge and experience of the greater Quirk agency.

In February this year, Steers - winners of Leisure Options' 'Best Burger in Joburg' for the 17th year running - partnered with leading full-spectrum digital agency, Amorphous. The product of this partnership is a progressive presence that sets Steers apart in South Africa's fast food digital playground.

Global Market Research company, Ipsos, has appointed Nick Coates as Head of the Marketing Business Unit of its South African operation. Coates will be commencing his duties in Cape Town South Africa on 7 January 2013.

The Tertiary School in Business Administration (TSiBA) celebrated its annual Appreciation Breakfast on Friday, 30 November. Invited guests included sponsors, donors, mentors, lecturers, interns, volunteers and other non-profit organisations that TSiBA works with.

At the beginning of 2012, the Digital Media and Marketing Association (DMMA) announced its plans to accelerate the growth of the digital industry within a South African context. The DMMA has made significant headway this year towards achieving this objective by implementing a number of key initiatives.

The ninth Thought Leadership Digibate, recently hosted by Aegis Media in conjunction with Bizcommunity.com in Cape Town, focused on the relevance of digital and mobile research in Africa. If you missed the Digibate, download or listen to the podcast which is now available.

As an agency offering intensive visual effects and compositing projects, the Cape Town postproduction company Searle Street Post collected a Visual Effects Craft Loerie for Allan Gray Time Flies and produced a string of quality CGI-driven commercials.

Chevrolet Ute Force has helped renovate Ons Plek, the residential child and youth care centre in Cape Town that provides developmental and therapeutic services for girls who have lived, worked or begged on the streets.

To assist in alleviating stress over career choices, in educating the public about the various careers available in advertising and in shifting the focus to private college course options, the AAA School of Advertising has extended its 2013 application date to 21 January 2013, unlike the majority of tertiary educational institutions that close for applications by the end of September.

This week sees the 20th anniversary of the SMS, invented in 1992 by British engineer, Neil Papworth. Initially slow, the boom in SMS saw more than 150 billion SMS sent in the UK in 2011, almost triple the amount that was sent five years previously (in 2006, there were 51 billion text messages sent).

To find out more about character-based entertainment products, youth-orientated content and communications solutions, tune in to our last Biz Takeouts Marketing & Media radio show for 2012, streamed live from 5pm-6pm via 2oceansVibe Radio. The studio guest this Thursday evening, 6 December 2012, will be Richard Morgan-Grenville, CEO of Strika Entertainment. [twitterfall]

NEWSWATCH: The SABC canned three print media commentators discussing coverage of the road to Mangaung (see SABC ... at it again) on a Metro FM show, because, according to Times Live, the ANC was not invited to join the debate. Meanwhile, it's the "jug-jug" for musician Jub Jub who has got 25 years for his role in the death of four teenagers, reports Mail & Guardian.

Many in the industry really felt for Alec Hogg in October when he walked away from Moneyweb, the company he built from nothing into a highly respected player in the media industry. Hogg tells Bizcommunity why he's philosophical about the move, what he's doing with his year's restraint of trade and what was so different about the values of majority shareholder Caxton and his own that made it impossible for him to stay on as Moneyweb CEO and board member.

'Hiking boots' could feature high on the Christmas list of walkabout consumers this year as price hikes and sky-high petrol prices get them trudging round stores in a quest for bargains rather than little luxuries.

Game Stores festive season ad campaign kicked off with a bang in the form of a quirky new offering from Ogilvy Durban. Produced by Fresh Eye Productions and Directed by Dani Hynes, the ad, takes an offbeat look at the crucial elements of the festive season.

Women in Action (WiA), a group of pastors' and bishops' wives from the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG), were invited to participate in the Gauteng Legislature's awareness expo and the commemoration of the 16 Days of Activism and World Aids Day.

The ECHO for Children Foundation, in conjunction with Vanilla Concrete Design and Manufacturing Studio and Eikestad Plumbing, joined forces in what has been the Foundation's most challenging project to date.

Mann Made Media, local multimedia events specialists, recently worked with Unisa to hold the institution's Annual Chancellor's Calabash Awards Dinner. Held in the Kgorong Building at the Unisa Main Campus in Tshwane, the prestigious event attracted a high-profile audience of leaders in academia, industry and government.

In 2002, FORTUNE magazine ran a cover story on why companies fail. It mentioned that even the most dramatic failures tend to be years in the making. What undoes companies is the familiar stuff of human folly: denial, hubris, ego, wishful thinking, poor communication, lax oversight, greed and deceit.

Ntombifuthi Mahlangu and Pearl Jozany, students at Lavela Secondary School in Soweto, and Lindiwe Adams from Zitikeni Secondary School in Thembisa, recently won an exclusive dinner with Lehlogonolo "Nolo" Phiri of Rhythm City fame. It took place at Emperors Palace, following hair care brand Easy Waves' 'Best Friend Friday' competition.

With Christmas closing in on us, we've all been bombarded by cheap tinsel, Boney M and a gaudy plethora of competing product displays in most of the supermarkets we've frequented over the past month or so. Most marketers view the festive season as a prime opportunity to boost product sales, and it can be, if it's done smartly.

As part of the 16-day campaign of activism for no violence against women and children, Porsche has donated a R500,000 cheque to Jelly Beanz Inc. Bernhard Maier, member of Porsche's executive board: sales and marketing in Germany, visited South Africa to personally hand over the donation.

The South African Post Office will be hosting a free kids Christmas card workshop at the V&A Waterfront on Saturday, 8 December 2012, from 1.30-4.30pm. Kids will have the opportunity to create their own Christmas cards and post Santa their Christmas wish lists, which will be sent to the North Pole.

The latest SAARF RAMS released yesterday, 4 December 2012, closes the year off quietly in the radio industry, with no significant changes for either the medium as a whole, or for individual radio stations.

According to a treaty South Africa agreed to with the International Telecommunications Union, we are committed to switching off our analogue television broadcasts by 2015, and start broadcasting via digital signals instead. It sounds simple enough. It also does not sound particularly exciting, does it?

NEWSWATCH: Just before three journalists were to be interviewed on Metro FM on the subject of the upcoming ANC elective conference in Mangaung and media coverage of the event, a call from "on high" apparently led to the three being stopped from going on air, reports Mail & Guardian.

Zoom turns 15 in February 2013 and, as this is reportedly a very busy period for its clients, the company decided to celebrate its birthday at the end of 2012 with a party on its premises. This was the perfect opportunity to refresh the brand and décor of the agency.